A general view shows the settlement of Balaklava, a district of Sevastopol in Crimea (Reuters / Pavel Rebrov) / Reuters

The Crimean authorities have signed the first two major contracts with investors since accession to Russia. The contracts deal with energy and are valued at $30 million, said the head of the republic Sergey Aksenov.

“We have signed the first two investment projects worth
around $30 million, all in the energy field. At the same time, we
have about 200 applications that are now being considered,"
Aksenov said Monday during a briefing for reporters.

The comment comes as Russia is preparing to celebrate the
anniversary of the reunification with Crimea. On March 17, 2014,
President Vladimir Putin signed the decree allowing the region to
enter the Russian Federation after the vast majority of Crimean
citizens voted in favor in a referendum.

The government of Crimea has made officials personally
responsible for refusing investment. The order is to prevent an
unjustified refusal by unscrupulous officials, said Aksenov.

"We will protect our investment opportunities. Anyway I'm
sure that the flow of investment will multiply," he said,
adding that the local government has opened a base of the Russian
State Register in Crimea which will allow quicker transactions
and the process of documents necessary for registration. That
would lift a major barrier for investment activity in the
peninsula linked to the registration of land rights.

Aksenov said the duty-free economic zone in Crimea which came
into effect in March 2014 has made the region particularly
attractive to investors because of the tax breaks.

Crimea has discovered how to technically bypass the sanctions
regime, Aksenov said.

"If we want to, we will find the means of inflowing capital
to the peninsula, so that the main business of large companies,
including those in Western countries, wasn’t hurt," he said,
adding that investors "will be lining up to get the
opportunity of investing in the Crimean economy."

Meanwhile, the European Union sees no reasons to lift sanctions
against Crimea, said the EU’s leading diplomat Federica Mogherini
ahead of the anniversary.

"The European Union does not recognize and continues to
condemn this act [reunification – Ed.] of violation of
international law," she said in a statement.

The EU and the US imposed sanctions against Russia in the middle
of March 2014, after Crimea became part of Russian territory.
Restrictive measures included the freezing of assets and the
introduction of visa restrictions for blacklisted people and
companies, such as Gazprom, Rosneft and their executives.

The measures also included banning Western companies from
maintaining business relations with the individuals and
organizations. Thus, such American companies as MasterCard, Visa,
PayPal and Google suspended service to Crimea as part of US
sanctions over the Ukrainian crisis.